Aside from Linux running on NASA hardware, phones and consoles. Does it run on ATM machines, PDAs and point of sale monitors?
I ask this because I’ve seen Windows being used in airport terminals and really old versions being used for cash machines as well. The crowdstrike problem made this more prevalent by seeing “non end user computers” using the OS.
Does Linux fill this niche as well do you know? I don’t recall hearing any big name embedded distro used for those sorts of machines. Maybe Alpine Linux or NetBSD?
Thank you in advance for your input!
There are tons of computers running Linux besides PCs. By far the biggest part are servers and supercomputers. Microsoft even has their own distribution for their server business. Then there are all the Android phones and devices. Android is Linux. In Germany I’ve also often seen Linux used for kiosks at government agencies.
Linux is used in TVs and set top boxes. Everything that says Tizen or WebOS is powered by Linux. I’ve also seen it used as in-flight entertainment systems. And Lunduke had an example of Linux running on a machine controlling how cows are milked, if I recall correctly.
For most systems you won’t actually know what OS is used until you see a hardware error screen. Although Microsoft has made it a little easier with mandatory updates.
I am not positive but if it still true originally webos was not linux. It started off as a very ahead of its time cell phone os made by Palm Inc. After they failed to gain traction it was sold to LG or made open source then sold or bought. LG uses it in their TVs but if I recall the base os is not Linux but some form of palmos assuming it has not been moved to Linux.
The Deutsche Bahn uses Linux for the displays in their trains, that show you the next stops, at least. Saw the systemd startup thingy on one of those displays once when the train restarted while I was in it.
my old GPS device runs on Linux. My PC also runs on Linux. To transfer updated maps from the PC to the GPS you needed a proprietary software that only ran on Windows. God, that pissed me off.
Lol kinda related, but Uconnect sent me an email a few months ago about the GPS maps in my car (11 years old at this point) being way out of date…they wanted $300 (or something like that) for a flash drive with the map update.
Lmao, like it wasn’t 2024 and Google Maps on my phone does a far better job than their proprietary crap they want 300$/update for
My 2014 Ford Flex was the same way, except that they didn’t contact me.
The car with which I replaced the Flex doesn’t have onboard navigation, instead relying on Android Auto. I was pleased about this, thinking at least it wouldn’t track where I was going … Until I opened the app and saw it could still report its location independently. At that point it seems like there might as well at least be an option for onboard navigation.
I want you to imagine an electronic device. Congratulations, you’ve imagined a device that runs some form of Linux…
I saw the self checkout machines in my supermarket being restarted a few times and caught a glimpse of what was shown on the screen. Before they were upgrade some time ago they showed that CentOS was running and now I think that I saw Rocky Linux running on there. So yes, these are definitely out there and used widely.
Also I’ve see pictures of Raspberry Pis being used almost everywhere.
Holy cow what country is this? All the self-service check outs in our Dutch Albert Heijns and Lidls use Windows 10/11!
A good boba tea shop, Sencha Silk near Arnhem Centraal, their self checkout used unregistered Windows 10’s and upgraded them to unregistered Windows 11’s recently, judging by the watermark on the bottom-right. Based.
